An Old Friend
by Finary Lane
Summary: Detective Max Bowen has transferred to the city from Clayton County. His first assignment is an unsolved case regarding a massacre that had taken place six years prior. The only surviving witness is no stranger. It's John Wayne Cleaver. Rated T for language.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: I do not own I Am Not A Serial Killer or the John Wayne Cleaver trilogies.

**An Old Friend**

by Finary Lane

**Chapter 1:** A dusty, old case

(spoilers for half of I Am Not A Serial Killer)

"Detective Bowen," called the lieutenant, "Come in."

Max turned the handle slowly. There was something about the lieutenant that sent him on edge. He wasn't sure what. His palms were sweaty and disgusting. He wiped them on pants as he walked into the cramped office. The lieutenant sat in swivel chair, unimpressed with Max so far.

The room was stifling, hot as a sauna and dark enough that Max had to squint. He couldn't remember the lieutenant's name. As far as he could recall, he was just Lieutenant. Lieutenant Lieutenant. Haha. It wasn't funny. The bustle of the city outside ad the cramped spaces were wearing him down. He wasn't used to such hustle.

"Country boy, eh? From, uh," he glanced down at his file.

"Clayton County, Lieutenant," filled in Max.

"Right, right. That. Anyways, welcome to our humble city. Don't make yourself too comfortable, I'm sending you out."

"Already?" said Max, a little surprised.

The lieutenant opened a drawer instead of answering and pulled out a file and two lollipops. He offered one to Max, who declined politely.

"More for me," shrugged the lieutenant as he began sucking on a one. Max squirmed uncomfortably until the lieutenant tapped the file he had taken out. Dust danced in the sunlight filtering in between the blinds.

"So, Bowen, how do you feel about F. B. fucking I.?"

Max spluttered at the lieutenant's language.

"They're alright, I guess?" he replied awkwardly.

"Wrong answer. They're assholes. And do you know why they're assholes?"

Max didn't answer.

"It's because they don't tell us shit, and then they cover up their fuck ups."

He tossed the file towards Max.

"So we have to do it ourselves," he finished. "You see, _Detective,_ as the newcomer, you get your very own old, weird-ass, unsolved, shady-FBI-business case. Don't worry too much if you don't get anywhere, no one really does. It's mostly to get you used to how we do things around here. Transfers come from all sorts of places. Like… Clayton County. Where the hell is that?

"Anyways, this incident is from about six years. I remember it because it was all over the news and there were wanted posters and the whole deal. Horrible murders, tons of bodies were were found. I was one of the first police officers there. I didn't even want to know what the official causes of death were. Hell, I threw up a few seconds after I walked in there.

"Funny thing is that they found an FBI team round back. And not just any FBI team, one of those top secret, only-a-few-people-know-they-even-exist teams. All dead. There was this puddle of weird black goo that forensics never identified and one guy had gas pumped into his veins and his heart had been ripped out. Sick, right?

Max was pale. Black goo…

The Clayton Killer left black goo too….

No. There was no way.

"The FBI took over not too long after and wouldn't answer our questions to close the case. They did throw out wanted posters though, for the one guy from that team to have survived the massacre."

He flipped open the file to a profile.

"This guy. John W. Cleaver. Dunno his middle name, his files are locked tight by the FBI. I want you to find him and question him on what happened that night so that we can officially close the case."

Max took a few seconds to find his voice.

"...Wayne," he managed.

"What?" said the lieutenant.

"His middle name. It's Wayne. Like John Wayne Gacy…."

John. How long had it been since he had last thought about John? When he had last seen Brooke, probably. Hadn't he kidnapped her or something? He wasn't sure. He hadn't wanted to know at the time. He hadn't wanted to think about that sick bastard he had once called a friend. He kind of regretted it now.

But he couldn't deny the connection. John. Brutal murders. Ok, those kind of went hand in hand. John followed death like a moth followed light. But the _black goo_. Unidentified black goo. That was the MO of the Clayton Killer, a case he hadn't really looked into until he started working at the police station. Clayton didn't have many cases, but most of them were in recent years. And most of them involved _John._ Dear Lord, that guy had been busy when they were teenagers.

He'd always thought of John as this reclusive, silent type who lived in the morgue and read too much about psychopaths. Who knew he was so popular with the serial killers?

He thought about John. How incredibly interested he had been in the Clayton Killer. Max had gone along with John's ramblings halfheartedly, more interested in Marci than a serial killer. But in retrospect, it was obvious that John had been profiling the Clayton Killer. John was creepy, but he was just that: a creepy teenager with a fascination with serial killers. And when one came to his town, he had been _ecstatic._ John was not the Clayton Killer.

But Max had seen John's little smirks and the secretive glint in his eye. Max had never asked about it. It was public knowledge that John kept cadavers in his basement. Max didn't want to know what John might think was necessary to keep secret.

Thinking about it now, however, is it possible that John had actually figured out something about the Clayton Killer. He had been the only person to ever see the Clayton Killer. No, even John wouldn't have kept something like this from the police…. _Two police officers were killed by the Clayton Killer after responding to an anoymous caller…_ Holy crap.

Why hadn't he seen it before? John followed death around like a moth to light. And he had a lot of faults, but he was brilliant. Of course he would manage to profile the Clayton Killer. Of course he would follow him. Of course he would _witness one of the murders long before Crowley was attacked._

John was a terrifying guy but…. he had been the one who was scared. The police hadn't been able to do anything. What did you do when the police couldn't help you? If there was one thing that Max had learned during his time as a police officer, it was that when people didn't believe the police could help.

It depended on the person. Some would obey the crazed killer. Would John? John electrocuted-to-death-the-guy-who-kidnapped-him-and-locked-him-in-a-closet Cleaver? Hell no. It wasn't his style. Some would find someone stronger to protect them. Who did John have to hide behind? Max? His twig of a mother? His aunt? His sister with the abusive boyfriend? He didn't have anyone. So that was out. Or he….

He didn't go to "F. B. fucking I.," right?

It seemed to fit with his involvement in this case, but no. If the FBI had shown up in _Clayton County, _everyone would have know within hours. FBI stealth had nothing on the observation power bored, old ladies spying through the blinds.

So what had John done? Taken on a serial killer straight on at fourteen? That was ridiculous. John wasn't stupid.

What really confused Max was why John would have suddenly spoken out as a witness after Crowley's death but not before. It could only mean that whatever had been scaring John before didn't scare him anymore. That he had no more reason to fear the Clayton Killer. That he believed the Clayton Killer to be dead or couldn't harm him anymore. But what could have killed him? John hadn't mentioned anything about it. Why wouldn't he mention it if something had happened to the Clayton Killer? He could have laid everyone's worried to rest so why…?

Self-incrimination. It fit. Now that, _that_,was John's style. Lying to everyone about the Clayton Killer's death to save his own hide. But that would bring him right back to _John taking on the Clayton Killer head-on. _It didn't make any sense. By that time, John would have known about him for months and known he would be killed if he tried to attack him.

He had figured out the killer's pattern months prior when he witnessed on of the murders the first time around. He had known who the killer was for _months_. Figured out his motivation. His strengths. His weaknesses.

John had been planning the Clayton Killer's death for _months_.

Now _that, that _was _really_ John's style. Stalking and plotting were John all-the-way. But how had he managed that? And where on earth did hide the corpse, anyways? It wasn't as if he had a convenient corpse locker in the basement where he could stuff it away. The cops had come very quickly and John had been right there. He wouldn't have had the time to dispose of the body elsewhere. So where had it gone?

….In his convenient corpse locker in the basement. Gosh, he was dense sometimes. John wouldn't have to hide the corpse at all. He lived in a _morgue_. It was perfectly ordinary to find a corpse in a morgue, especially when people kept getting killed by a serial killer as of late.

A finger snapped in face.

"Hey. Bowen. You in there? You've been zoned out for the past ten minutes. You know this guy or something?"

"Yeah," said Max hesitantly, "I knew him in high school. He's a real fan of, um, serial killers."

"You don't say?" The lieutenant rolled his eyes.

He stared at Max for a second.

"Well?" he drawled, "Get out of my office and get started, _Detective._"

Max scampered out of dreary office file in hand. He pulled out his new cell phone and dialed a number before bringing it up to his ear.

"Hi, Brooke," he began, "I was wondering if you had any idea where I might John? Yeah, I've been thinking about, uh, reconnecting with him. Yeah…."

* * *

**Author's Note:** There is next to no IANASK fanfiction. Well that needs to be rectified, hm? Please leave me a review!


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2: A reluctant beginning

"Really?" said Brooke, "You _want_ to talk to John?_"_

Max sighed. Yeah, no one was going to believe he wanted to meet John again of his own free will. Oh well, he tried.

"Max," she continued, "no one wants to _reconnect_ with John. The only people who even ask about him are his sister, his aunt, a handful of people who want him dead and the FBI when he slips off their radar."

Sometimes Brooke said things that made Max very concerned. Not for John, the man could rot in a ditch for all he cared, but for Brooke. She was the sweetest woman. Really. She had issues that seemed to stem from her time with John –that bastard- and had never really recovered, but she was as kind, understanding and beautiful as ever. Most of the time, it seemed that every daunting situation she had found herself in was long past her. Then she would casually mention frequent contact with killers and feds, and Max would find himself questioning everything he thought he understood about her.

"Yeah, um," he stumbled a bit over his words, "It's actually about my first city case. He's my best lead."

Brooke was silent on the other end of the line.

"John's been staying out of trouble for a long time now," she said after a long pause. "Jasmyn's been good for him. Whatever case you're on is old news. Leave the poor man alone; he's finally happy and living out his life."

Max leaned against the wall and rubbed his forehead. He could tell that Brooke was holding something back from him. But what? He'd thought John would be the only possible source of information he might find, but Brooke had been with him at the time the massacre had taken place. If she hadn't been at the scene of the crime with him, then she couldn't have been very far. Immediately after the massacre, John ran away with Brooke. It was the general consensus in Clayton County that John's motive for going on the run had been to kidnap her. When his face showed on the news, everyone thought that he had finally snapped and joined the psychopaths he'd always been obsessed with. With information he currently had, though, that didn't really hold up.

Initially, as many residents of Clayton County did, Max had assumed that there were three grand time spans to consider in the life of John Cleaver. The first was his life in Clayton up until he kidnapped Brooke and left town. Then was the time he was on the run from the authorities for kidnapping Brooke. Then the third period came when he realized his wrongs, brought Brooke back home and disappeared never to be seen or heard from again.

Max would need to rethink these ideas. He noted that Brooke probably knew something, but before questioning her, he needed to sort through his own ideas. It was so much more confusing when he had all these preconceived ideas of what had happened.

After a brief exchange with Brooke, he scored himself an invitation to breakfast the next morning to go over any information she had.

"Thank you, Brooke," he said as farewell, "I appreciate it."

Closing his cell phone, he walked out of the police station into the sun. He'd thought coming to the city would award him a nicer police station to call his workplace, but no such luck. It was bigger, but darker, and rather depressing to spend any time in, especially with the strange lieutenant lurking around. He'd rather take a look at the case at a coffee shop he'd spotted down the street.

There weren't many people milling about at that time of morning, a fact he was grateful for. The air smelled faintly of dew. He strolled down the street, enjoying the peace. Entering the shop, he smiled at a waitress who motioned for him to pick a seat. He took a seat as she brought him a menu of the complex caffeinated drinks they served. Drinks he had never heard of in Clayton. He resolved to try each of them at least once in his lifetime.

Not knowing which one to start with, he ordered the waitress's recommendation: a marocchino. Whatever that was.

He watched the young woman turn towards the counter, flat hair swaying as she walked. There was something so perfect about the coffee shop that he indulged in its peace a few seconds longer before turning his thoughts to his assignment. He gazed outside the window.

The advantage he had over any other detective looking into this case was the he knew John and Brooke. He also had a little more background on cases that John had been involved with in the past. The downside was that he already had opinion on John that might blind him to the actual events that had taken place. He had to careful here.

The period of time between John first leaving Clayton and returning Brooke changed much more than he had thought. If anything, this massacre seemed to have played a pivotal role. It had forced him to go on the run. Prior to that, it wasn't clear what he had been doing. According to the lieutenant, he had been part of the FBI team that was killed alongside the civilians in the building. He needed more information on that.

Max opened the file and flipped through it. John's incomplete profile, descriptions of the scene, blood samples and an inconclusive analysis of the black goo along with some other papers. But no mention of John's role with the F.B.I. That was odd. Had Max misheard or had the lieutenant given him information that was not on record? He'd have to ask about the origin of that information later. For now, he would consider John a member of the team while keeping an open mind. His role might have been different.

If had been part of the team, had Brooke been as well? It was a strange thought, but Max quickly set it aside. It didn't make sense; what could a teenage girl possibly offer to such an organization? She didn't have any skills they would value and her mental state had been questionable at best. Max could at least see how John might be useful. He knew _way, way_ too much about serial killers. Max himself knew too much about serial killers, and most of what he knew was second hand information from John. One of Max's teachers had once joked that his understanding of serial killings was one of his best assets as a cop. Max had been grumpy for a week following but knew it was true. He could definitely see John as an asset for the F.B.I. In all likelihood, John probably left her alone wherever they were staying when he worked with the feds.

But what exactly had that team been working on? Max felt that this was a key component to the case. Super-secret F.B.I. teams didn't exactly turn up dead by coincidence. The team's specialty was certainly linked to the horrid murders inside the building.

Murders that, as far as he could tell, had little rhyme or reason to them beyond being as horrific as possible. The list and details in his file made him feel sick, and he suddenly understood the lieutenant's odd behaviour when handing the case over to him. Sure, it was a sort of impossible test for newcomers to be given cold cases, but if Max had discovered that crime scene… He'd also be bringing it up long after it had gone cold. Max pushed the thought away.

The pretty waitress brought him his drink, a towering thing that looked more like dessert than coffee. Max thanked her and carefully sipped it. It was as delicious as she had promised.

Max figured that speculation would lead him nowhere. He simply didn't know enough. No one knew enough. He knew that horrific murder had taken place. He knew it involved the F.B.I. He knew it involved John, and maybe Brooke. He knew that the lieutenant had been one of first policemen on sight. He knew that John had been on the run afterwards, and that he wasn't anymore.

What he didn't know was who the killer was. He didn't have a name, but he also lacked any kind of profile. There was no apparent motive. The deaths were horrific, but didn't seem to follow any pattern he could distinguish. Some of those deaths seemed almost supernaturally difficult to carry out. What weapons were used? Why attack these people? There were no hints available to him. Nothing in the case fit.

For example, one of the latest murders was that of one of the F.B.I members whose veins were pumped full of gasoline. What possible reason would anyone have for doing that? Was it some kind of symbolic revenge? Besides, who even had the know-how on how to do that, besides doctors and embalmers?

Embalmers… morticians…

God_dammit,_ John. What the _hell_ were you thinking?

Max shook himself. It would do him no good to jump to conclusions. He was just pulling at straws. No, what he needed was a source of information, but his meeting with Brooke wouldn't be until tomorrow. Where else could he look? He thought on it for a second. The only other source of extra information besides Brooke was the lieutenant. He'd known that John was in the FBI despite it not being mentioned in the file. It was possible that he knew some other information that was off the books. Max sipped at his sweet drink, dreading his return to that cramped space to interrogate the intimidating man. He'd have to head there once he was done with his _mocachino_.

He sipped at it as slowly as possible.


End file.
